Side-scrolling Metroidvania Afterimage is the product of a successful Kickstarter from Chinese developer Aurogon Shanghai. The campaign blew through its humble goal of roughly $15,000 USD, reaching just under $100,000. The action and exploration all come wrapped in a gorgeous hand-drawn world that borrows heavily from an anime or JRPG style of world-building, both artistically and tonally.
Recently, Game ZXC was given the opportunity to explore the opening hours of Afterimage, with access to five areas, a handful of boss encounters, and several different weapons, items, and abilities. The character upgrade system was also accessible, giving a solid picture of what to expect from the game's estimated 25-30 hour runtime.
Players hop into the heeled boots of Renee, who, along with her cute floating companion Ifree, travel across the land of Engardin uncovering its secrets and battling monsters. Renee is an amnesiac and, taking a cue from the old chosen one storytelling trope, is heavily implied to possess some sort of mysterious quality that makes her special.
The lore and characters could be pulled directly from an anime, with so many unfamiliar names, locations, concepts, and events that it might make the player's head spin. The world of Afterimage has lost its god and suffered a calamity called The Razing. As a result, the natural world is in turmoil. Normally, when a person's body expires, their soul is transferred into a soul stream to eventually be placed back into a body. This process has been disrupted, however, and it's up to Renee to solve the mysteries of this post-apocalyptic fantasy world and discover her own identity.
In classic Metroidvania style, the levels are interconnected, expansive, and full of shortcuts. Each area features a distinct, beautifully drawn biome. The map is riddled with tantalizing secrets, inaccessible until the proper ability is unlocked. Hostile life roves the land, both endemic, and a product of the disrupted rebirth cycle.
To combat these enemies, Renee has a variety of tools at her disposal. The X and Y buttons can each be assigned a weapon, and the B button, a spell book (on an Xbox controller). Players will collect a wide array of weapons from both chests and random enemy drops. Though the two spells available in the demo came from story events and a hidden chest. Each weapon type performs differently, with varying speed, range, and damage. The demo contained a great sword, scythe, whip, dual blades, katana, and two different single-handed swords. These two swords functioned the same, but their stats varied: the Iron Sword provided a boost of 25 HP, while the sword simply called Star increased critical hit chance.
Spells offer players a ranged alternative in combat, each depleting Rene's MP bar. Only one spell can be active at a time, tied to the spell book equipped. The magic in Afterimage all seems to be tied to natural elements, the two available being fire and water-based. Both shoot out a ball of energy, and some enemies have weaknesses that can be exploited.
Aside from weapons and spell books, players can also switch out their armor and accessories. Similar to offensive gear, this equipment provides stat buffs and passive abilities. One accessory, for example, provides MP regeneration every time Renee receives healing, helpful if players are leaning toward a magical build.
Upon leveling up, and as a reward from chests, players will receive talent points. These are used to gain stat upgrades and skills in a branching, grid-style upgrade system, akin to a miniature version of the sphere grid from the iconic Final Fantasy 10. Beginning at a central point, the grid branches out in several directions, each path leading to weapon-specific abilities or towards magical upgrades. The deeper upgrades are gated by level, so players will end up unlocking much of the grid over the course of the game, as their accrued talent points will likely exceed the accessible upgrades.
Along with equipment and talents, players also have access to afterimages, abilities that will add new traversal mechanics, and grant access to new locations and secrets. There are two types of afterimages, those which are always active once unlocked, like the dash ability, and those which can be swapped. Through the course of the preview build, only one of these swappable afterimages could be equipped at once, but it appears as though a number of them will eventually be unlocked, so it's a good bet that multiple can be equipped later.
With the surplus of equipment, talents, and afterimages, players will have a lot of customization options. Like the aforementioned MP regenerating accessory, much of the equipment compliments certain talents, allowing for a depth of build variety. Players can find a style and weapons that click with them and stick to that path, but it's implied that regularly switching out builds to exploit enemy weaknesses will be to their advantage.
Combat is fast-paced and smooth but by no means simple. The regular enemies, though not terribly challenging, are all unique, at least insofar as the preview build has shown. No two attack the same way, and players must pay attention to each monster's idiosyncrasies, as even the simplest foe can take Renee down if ignored.
The boss encounters are challenging, unique, and a lot of fun, aside from the first major enemy which seems to need a little tweaking. But if that encounter doesn't rank among the best tutorial boss fights, the others are very solid, functioning like tough, reflex-based puzzles. Their attacks and movement styles are distinct in a way that helps tell their story and contextualize them as a character. One boss, roughly an hour and a half in, was clearly on another level than Renee power-wise, with completely unfamiliar magic. She launched energy attacks and teleported away only to reappear in inopportune positions. Defeating her required focus and deft use of the dash ability, and the eventual victory was very satisfying.
Afterimage is shaping up to be among the best Metroidvania titles seen in a while, with a big beautiful world, a grand story, and epic boss fights. The potential build variety alone helps it stand out among its peers, but there's a lot more this game has going for it. It'll be one to watch in the coming months.
Afterimage launches April 25, 2023, on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. Game ZXC was provided a PC code for this preview.
